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of the revolution of the fixed stars, that is 13,000
years, and even more.
Thus Pluche, generalizing some indications of the
ancients, has thought that Aries announces the
beginning of the sun's elevation and the vernal
equinox; that Cancer announces his retrogradation to
the summer solstice; that Libra, the emblem of the
equality, marks the autumnal equinox;(1) and that
Capricornus, a climbing animal, denotes the winter
solstice; after which, the sun returns to us. In this
manner, by placing the inventors of the zodiac in a
temperate climate, we should have rains under
Aquarius; the birth of lambs and kids under Gemini;
violent heats under Leo; harvests under the Virgin;
hunting under Sagittarius, &c.; and these emblems are
perfectly appropriate. By placing the colures at the
commencement of the constellations, or at least, the
equinox at the first stars of Aries, we should only
arrive in the first instance at 389 years before Christ,
an epoch evidently too modern, and which would
render it necessary to refer to an entire equinoctial
period, or 26,000 years. But if it be supposed that the
equinox passed through the middle of the constellation,
we should reach nearly 1000 or 1200 years more
remote to 1600 or 1700 years before Christ; and this is
the epoch which many celebrated men have thought
really to be that of the invention of the zodiac, the
honour of which, on very slight grounds, they have
assigned to Chiron.
But Dupuis, who needed for the origin which he
pretended to attribute to all religions, that astronomy,
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(1) Varro de Ling. Lat. lib. vi. Signa quod aliquid significent, at Libra
æquinoctium, Mabroc. Sat. lib. 1, c. cxxi. Capricornus ab infernis partibus ad
superas soleim reducens Capræ naturam videtur imitari.
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